Tropical Smoothie Cafe’s CFO, Chris Sasser, considers himself a customer experience champion, which is uncommon for finance executives. Sasser has a background in marketing analytics and guest experience, which gives him a unique perspective on the importance of customer experience.
According to Sasser, customer experience is not just a marketing initiative, but a business performance driver. He believes that a great customer experience can help raise revenues and control operating expenses, making it a key differentiator in the competitive restaurant industry.
The restaurant industry has become increasingly competitive over the past six years, with restaurants looking for ways to get ahead. Sasser believes that guest experience is a key area where restaurants can create sustainable, profitable growth. By focusing on customer experience, restaurants can get guests to come back more often, spend more, and recommend them to others.
Jon Picoult, founder and principal of Watermark Consulting, agrees that customer experience is a proven lever for building business value. He notes that a great customer experience can help raise revenues and control operating expenses, making it a key driver of business performance.
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Tropical Smoothie Cafe uses OSAT scores to measure overall satisfaction. The company found that the top 50% of locations reported satisfaction that was 17% higher and traffic that was 1.3% higher year-to-date compared to the bottom 50%. Sasser believes that being able to measure and analyze this data allows the company to add value and get the entire C-suite on board.
The company also found that a half-star improvement in a single location’s Google rating translated to roughly $60,000 in incremental profit per year for the cafe owner. This represents a significant opportunity if applied across the chain’s more than 1,700 locations.
Sasser notes that they analyzed the star ratings, controlled for designated marketing areas, and looked at the performance of the cafes. They found that when a cafe has a higher Google star rating, it leads to more sales and additional profitability.
The company found that the big threshold is four stars, as potential customers looking for restaurants on Google will filter four stars and above. Sasser believes that once guests are in the door, the company does a good job of making them happy, but the new guests were the ones that were really trying to acquire with the Google rating.
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Tropical Smoothie Cafe has rapidly grown, opening about 750 stores in the past five years. However, this rapid growth led to some franchisee inconsistency, which impacted Google star ratings. The company found that speed was the top issue impacting the chain’s Google reviews and overall satisfaction.
To address this issue, the company made investments in the back of house to get faster. While changes eventually lead to improving Google stars, the Google star ratings offer a trailing indicator, and it takes time to get reviews on Google.
They are focused on creating a great customer experience.